Yves here. Simon Watkins is a hard-core neocon, so his posts need to be taken with an ample dose of salt. Nevertheless, he raises an option for Israel in attacking Iran that I have not seen mentioned before, that of operating out of Azerbaijan. I hope I can get Conor to opine. As you can see from the map below, Israel could fly into Azerbaijan through Turkiye and Armenian or Georgian airspace. Watkins reduces his credibility by (without naming them) by claiming that their is a flight path to Azerbaijan through NATO airspace, when neither Georgia or Armenia are members (both are in the half-pregnant friends of NATO status; Armenia is an Associate Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and has an Permanent Mission to NATO; Georgia like Ukraine has been invited to join NATO and Russia fought a war to prevent Georgia’s NATO entry).
A separate reason to question this piece is it depicts Iran as receiving Russian assistance with a nuclear program. Scott Ritter, who knows a thing or two about nuclear programs, opined today on Judge Napolitano that it would now take Iran only 2 to 3 days to complete developing a nuclear weapon.
So would either state accommodate Israel, and risk some sort of retaliation by Russia (which needless to say does not have to be military)? And what about Turkiye? Erdogan has been all hat, no cattle in terms of fiercely criticizing Israel’s genocide but doing virtually nada to stop it (its import and export ban did not extend to what really could have hurt, trans-shipped gas). His citizens are very upset with his inaction. Could he afford to allow Israel to overfly Turkiye to pre-position an attack on Iran from Azerbaijan?
And I to implement this scheme assume Israel would have to move a fair bit of kit over too, which would be visible to Iran and to Russia. Could Israel realistically set up the needed logistics support and comms out of a base presumably not set up for US/NATO use? Reader sanity checks encouraged.
By Simon Watkins, a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author. He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for Credit Lyonnais, and later Director of Forex at Bank of Montreal. He was then Head of Weekly Publications and Chief Writer for Business Monitor International, Head of Fuel Oil Products for Platts, and Global Managing Editor of Research for Renaissance Capital in Moscow. Originally published at OilPrice.com
- srael faces mounting pressure to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities amid escalating missile attacks, with Tehran now reportedly possessing enough material for three nuclear warheads.
- Discussions at high levels suggest that Russia may be assisting Iran in nuclear technology in exchange for missile support in the Ukraine war.
- A full-scale Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, while technically feasible, risks severe retaliatory missile attacks.
As Tel Aviv continues to trade attacks and counterattacks with Tehran and its proxies – the latest being the 1 October firing of 181 missiles by Iran on targets inside Israel — the obvious question to many dedicated Middle East watchers is why Israel does not just take out all Iran’s nuclear facilities in the process, as these are the greatest danger to it and its allies? There may well also be an even more immediate danger than many think as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned in May that Iran possesses enough material to produce at least three nuclear warheads. The only previous saving grace in this fact was that the Islamic Republic was further away than that from having finalised the designs for key technology elements of such a weapon — around nine months, according to a senior security source close to the U.S. Presidential Administration and a counterpart close to the European Commission exclusively spoken to over the past month by OilPrice.com. However, this has now changed, as very recent discussions at the highest levels of G7 governments highlight that Russia may now be assisting Iran in this respect, in exchange for the missiles and drones Tehran supplies Moscow for its ongoing war on Ukraine.
Certainly, there is no stumbling block to Israel hitting Iran’s key nuclear sites through lack of intelligence on the subject – Tel Aviv and Washington have long known exactly where all the major elements in Iran’s nuclear development programme are. It is reasonable to assume that the primary targets would include the big nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan, Arak, Parchin, Qom, and Bushehr, and the major uranium mines in Saghand and Qchine. Overall, Iran disclosed 21 sites related to its nuclear programme to the IAEA during the period it was monitored, and there were further sites at which the Agency detected the presence of highly enriched uranium. Several additional sites that remained undisclosed to the IAEA by Iran have since been uncovered by various intelligence sources, it is believed. This a lot of sites for Israel’s air force to attack, particularly given the 900 miles or so from their key operational airports to the furthest of these Iranian targets they are, compounded by how deep underground several of the sites have been located. But could Israel successfully strike a handful of the biggest sites, which would at least significantly set back Iran’s nuclear development timetable? According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report from 28 September 2012 (‘Israel: Possible Military Strike Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities’) the answer may be ‘yes’.
Firstly, the air strike force would need to take off from a position that allowed it the optimal air route from Israel to Iran. Top of the list of such candidates would appear to be Azerbaijan, with which Israel has notably developed much closer relations in the past few years, including supplying it with weapons to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh last year. Up to and after that, according to the U.S. and E.U. sources spoken to by OilPrice.com, Israel’s military presence in the country has dramatically increased, although further additions to Israel’s force there could be made by overflying the airspace of several NATO countries. This would avoid the more problematic routes involving Jordan and then Iraq, or via Saudi Arabia. Second, it would need the right bombs to penetrate the defences of deep underground facilities. Several of these sites are believed to be at least 300 feet down, compared to the 100 feet of the bunker in which Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was neutralised on 27 September by the U.S.-made 2,000-pound BLU-109 penetrator bombs, so a more powerful weapon would be needed. Back at the time of the CRS’ 2012 report, it highlighted that the U.S. had already sold Israel Guided Bomb Units (GBU) of the ‘27’ 2000-lb class and the ‘28’ 5000-lb class. Crucially, though, it added that, “the U.S. may have quietly given Israel much more sophisticated systems or Israel may have developed its own.” Over and above any further logistical considerations in such a major operation is the telling fact that Iran clearly thinks Israel could pull it off, as in April — shortly after the Iranian missile attack on Israel — Tehran closed its nuclear facilities.
Such attacks by Israel on Iran’s key nuclear facilities is only one part of the equation, of course, with the other being what Iran and its allies might do in retaliation. It is this that appears to form the dividing line between the views of current U.S. President, Joe Biden, and his predecessor and current presidential candidate, Donald Trump. And although Israel could carry off the nuclear site attack without the U.S., handling the consequences on its own would be difficult. Most notably in the context, repeated barrages of Iranian missiles and drones aimed at a broad selection of targets across Israel would be extremely difficult for Tel Aviv to defend without air support from the U.S. and U.K., despite its Iron Dome missile defence system. According to a recent news report, satellite and social media footage has shown that multiple Iranian missiles were able to penetrate the defensive shield and hit Israel’s Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert, among other targets, in its previous missile attack on 13 April. Any idea that Israel would be able to take out these missile sites at the same time as Iran’s nuclear ones looks highly unrealistic, given not only that many are also buried deep underground but also that many of the missiles are launched from highly mobile launchers. It may be that Israel decides to take its chance in this regard in order to setback Iran’s nuclear programme without the full backing of the U.S., but this is clearly the less preferable option.
Biden last week made it clear that he is not in favour of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear sites and the key reasons appear to be the same as they were when President Barack Obama refused to countenance such calls from Israel as well. Then-Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said back in 2011 that in such an event the U.S. would be blamed and could also be the target of retaliation from Iran through strikes against its military bases or navy in the Middle East. There could also be actions by Iran and its proxies to cause economic hardship for the Western Allies through attacks taken against key oil sector sites, as analysed recently by OilPrice.com. It could further be expected that Iran pushes its supporters around the world to launch terrorist attacks on wider targets associated with the U.S. in the West and East. This is why Biden’s team continues to focus on tightening sanctions as the principal response to any increase in the scale of Iranian actions against Israel. This is also the view of the doves in Israel’s cabinet. Conversely, the hawks take the view of Donald Trump, who said last week (in response to Biden’s flat ‘no’ on Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities): “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. That’s the biggest risk we have. The biggest risk we have is nuclear … Soon they’re going to have nuclear weapons. And then you’re going to have problems.” Given this, Israel may be waiting to make the big push against Iran if and when Trump is elected president.
